As Far As I'd Go
by thisisforyou
Summary: An exploration on the limits - or rather, lack of them - in John and Sherlock's relationship. Series of hurt/comfort ficlets. Rating varies from K all the way up to M - I've put each rating seperately on the inside. Six - John is temporarily deafened.
1. Sick

**A/N: Er… yeah. I've been toying with the idea of a no-boundaries relationship for ages now and tried to write it into an original short story, but failed somewhat, so I'm using the boys as inspiration. This will not be actual slash, unless you're that way inclined and feel like looking at it with that tint of spectacle. Just a series of one-shots or maybe two-shots if it happens that way. This particular one didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, but I guess it's just an introduction to my premise. Enjoy anyway, and please review with hurt/comfort ideas you'd like to see. I need all the help I can get.**

**-for you!**

He wakes up late.

Well, so far, so hunky-dory. When he rolls over and finds that it's eleven-thirty he groans and weighs the benefits of going back to sleep. Extensive research has shown that falling back to sleep in the morning actually makes you more tired, but then, he already feels terrible, so it's unlikely to hurt him. He knows there isn't a case, so it's not like a retreat from humanity for the day is going to terribly inconvenience anyone.

Or maybe he should get up and find something to do. Practise coercion on Molly Hooper from the lab. Maybe find a nice cadaver in the process and test the theory he's been developing about immobile blood clots. Yes, that thought is rather pleasing. John could come too, just to make sure he doesn't hurt Molly too badly. She wouldn't go near him for weeks after the incident with Jim – no, Moriarty. It was most inconvenient.

Sherlock is comfortable now with the idea that he and John need each other. When he's hurt or upset he craves the doctor's company; when he's happy he wants John to share the feeling. And John will text him if he's having a bad day at the clinic or needs some company or even if he's seen something that made him laugh. It's nice. John still maintains that they're 'friends', that this is what 'friends' do. He'd thought before that he'd had friends. If this is friendship, he realised, then he's never had a friend before. There's never been anyone he was comfortable enough to fall asleep on the sofa with, or hug in public.

People at the Yard think they're shagging, he knows that. He doesn't care if John doesn't. They're comfortable with what they are and don't need to define it for other people who probably wouldn't understand anyway. John said once that they're like brothers. Sherlock knows he could never be like this with Mycroft, but apparently he and the government official are not your usual family anyway.

On this morning he suddenly wants to be with John, which is nothing new, and judging by the time he'll be up. It's Saturday, but the doctor never stays in bed past nine unless they've been on a case. So he gets up, shrugs on the fluffy dressing gown John bought for him last year, and ventures into the sitting room.

And finds John prone on the kitchen floor, a shattered mug beside him, the kettle abandoned in the sink. And panics. "John!" he runs to the doctor's side and shakes him. "_John!" _He checks quickly for wounds or signs of intravenous injection; they've been ultra-careful since the second scare with Moriarty two months ago but it's not impossible that the mastermind could have got into the kitchen without some signal from Mycroft's surveillance. But there's nothing; John is pale and covered with a cold sheen of sweat but there is no sign of physical injury.

Sherlock never gets sick. Somehow he skipped the whole 'physical vulnerability' gene. But John's had food poisoning before and a cold or two and the consulting detective knows enough to tell that his friend – the word still seems strange after eighteen months – is sick now, worse than he's seen before. So he cleans up the mug beside him and puts the kettle on, and tries to prop John up against the cupboards. John relaxes into his touch so he stays there, arms around him, murmuring the doctor's name softly.

After about ten minutes the stocky invalid regains consciousness. "Sherlock?" he mutters. The curly-haired detective had fallen into a deep ruminative state through which John's name has become a mantra, but he rouses himself.

"How do you feel? What hurts?" There is silence for a few seconds. "I put the kettle on for you."

"Sherlock," the doctor says, his voice low and hoarse, "I think I'm going to be sick." The self-professed sociopath hasn't had much experience with this and feels unfairly out of his depth.

"Oh. Um… Here, can you stand up?" He tugs John to his feet and directs him towards the sink just in time; the contents of the doctor's stomach splatter into the kitchen sink and Sherlock is stuck standing behind him as he retches, rubbing his back and trying his hardest to be sympathetic and comforting. Finally John subsides into pitiful shudders.

"Water," he mumbles. Sherlock scrambles awkwardly for a glass and fills it from the tap, again and again until his flatmate has drunk his fill. "Thanks," he says weakly. "I came into the kitchen 'cause I was thirsty, but all the blood rushed out of my head."

"John…" Sherlock doesn't know anything about sickness. He's seen people throw up before, and should know that it's not the end of the world, but seeing someone spill their guts into the sink – seeing _John_ spill his guts into the sink – still hits him pretty hard and he wonders terrifiedly how sick John really is. "John, how bad is it?"

The doctor gives a hacking cough that might have been a laugh before it went through his throat. "It feels pretty bad, Sherlock, but I'll live." _Okay_. He let out a long breath.

"Okay." He felt like he should get John back to bed, but would he throw up again? He might throw up on the carpet and Sherlock wouldn't have the first idea how to clean it up, or in his bed and then somehow he'd have to change the sheets around him, or he might pass out again before they got there, but he couldn't just leave him here in the kitchen as his face grew gradually paler from being upright. Mrs Hudson's downstairs, she'll know what to do. "I'll just go get Mrs Hudson –"

"No!" He stops in shock as John makes a grab for his arm. "Sherlock, please, don't go, just stay with me for a bit –" he leans down and vomits again, and the detective shuts his eyes and wishes he could shut his ears too.

"John, I don't know what to do. Mrs Hudson can take care of you. I… I can't." He leaves his arm in the doctor's grip, though, and puts his other hand on his shoulder.

"Just stay with me," John all but whispered, his vocal chords raw from the stomach acid. This can't be the first time he's thrown up and Sherlock suddenly hates himself for not being awake earlier. He wraps his body around John's back, trying to keep him warm because he's shivering, trying to comfort him when he needs comfort himself.

"Okay," he murmurs and his deep voice stills the tremors in John's body. "I'm here."

They somehow manage to get to Sherlock's bedroom – he's not sure how to deal with the stairs, but he only changed the sheets yesterday – and Sherlock sets up a sizeable bucket beside the bed and just holds John, holds him while every ten minutes he leans over and retches liquid – that's all he has left in him – into the bucket. Sherlock's heart breaks every time he coughs weakly and apologises. John always apologises. It's not his fault people get sick. "How come _you _don't get sick?"

"I just don't," he replies. "Unlucky, I guess." John snorts, and the chest contortion causes him to dry retch again. Sherlock doesn't move away.

"Unlucky?" the two men smile, one weakly, the other uncertainly. "Thanks, Sherlock," the weak one says gently. "Thanks for being here."

"I'll always be here," the uncertain one replies firmly. "Even when I have no idea what to do and I'm scared out of my wits, I'll be here for you, John. I promise."

They both smile again, stronger this time. John relaxes into Sherlock's arms and both contemplate how good it feels to _have_ someone, no questions, no assumptions. "So mote it be," John mutters. Then he rolls over and throws up again.


	2. Late

**_Late_**

**Rating: T** for mentions of rape.  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Well, mentions of rape.

It's rather late.

John's used to it. Well, all right, he personally doesn't think it's something you really get _used _to, when your flatmate who's also your best friend you'd do anything for stays out risking his life until well past midnight. Maybe one day he'll be able to go to bed and not worry, won't have to wait up for Sherlock to come home just to make sure he's all right. At least he's stopped calling Lestrade at eleven. It's difficult to keep an eye on the surprisingly-stealthy Sherlock Holmes, he knows that. He can't always blame the DI, especially when sometimes the case that's keeping the consulting detective away from home has nothing to do with his police unit.

Right now it's twelve-fifteen and John's flicking between _Hustle_ and old re-runs of _Doctor Who_ and really paying hardly any attention to either of them. He's seen both of them before; this is the episode where Stacey pretends to be an actress and Danny'll get shot after the next ad break, he knows, and he has a feeling those aliens with the tentacles are genetically manipulating Tim McKinnon.

He can't watch this sort of television around Sherlock. The consulting detective will try and sit through it for John's sake, but it irritates him no end that he can't predict who the murderer is in late-night crime shows because the writers don't think about things like the turn-ups of the actors' jeans and all the evidence is pointing the wrong ways. And it irritates _John_ no end that his lanky flatmate will voice this disappointment in rather vocal terms and spoil what suspense there might have been for those willing to relax and not constantly second-guess every plot twist. Sherlock just doesn't understand the joy normal people get from watching crap television.

But he'd rather not have to watch it at this time of night at all; he'd rather be in bed, sleeping, not worrying about what Sherlock Holmes might be doing now. He shouldn't worry, he knows that. Sherlock can look after himself, as long as no-one asks him to do the housework. Well, when Mr Sherlock Holmes finally skips elatedly through that door he's getting an earful. John has work in the morning.

About half an hour later Danny is in hospital and Tim McKinnon has gone tentacle-y and the TARDIS has winked out of existence again and there's nothing else on except an expose on 'the world's stupidest criminals'. John has a feeling he's going to get one of those anyway.

Then, about bloody time, the door opens and John doesn't have to look up to recognise the trench-coated, scarfed figure that comes in, closes it, and leans against it, like he's exhausted, like he sprinted all the way here and is still desperately trying to catch his breath. "I almost hesitate to ask what took you so long," John comments idly. "Do I expect an angry call from Lestrade?"

"John –"

"No, hang on a minute, Sherlock," he interrupts, because he always wants to say this but he always lets the detective defend himself, which he's devilishly good at. "You don't even think about me out there, do you? You don't think that it's _me_ people call when you run off or ignore them. You don't think that I'm sitting here wasting time waiting up for you – and I know you don't _ask_ me to worry about you," he says because he knows that was inches away from spilling out of that cupid's-bow mouth, "but you should know by now that I do anyway and it's inconsiderate that you don't care." He turns off the television and throws down the remote in a perhaps-overdramatic gesture. "Half the time when you stay out late you're not even doing anything that couldn't wait until morning. I care about you, Sherlock, and I worry when you don't come home. And you can switch the light on, now, before you give me a heart attack from sitting here in the dark."

He stops, run down, proudly astonished that he managed that little rant without being interrupted. When the silence stretches on longer he starts to wonder if he's been a little harsh. When it sits so deep he can hear Sherlock's breathing, harsh and struggling a little, he stops dead in his tracks and looks up. "Sherlock? Are you okay?"

After a few moments' fumbling in which there definitely looks to be something wrong with Sherlock's arm, the light flicks on and John sees his face, the way he's holding himself, his legs that are still leaning him up against the doorframe because they're evidently too weak to support that six-foot frame. "Oh, God," he breathes. And in that moment, John Watson hates himself. Because Sherlock is a bloody mess – his face is a mesh of bruises and cuts and there's blood dripping into his eyes, and his arm looks like it might be broken and he's very carefully not moving, with the air of a man whose every terrified, struggling breath is hurting him, and without coming any closer John can tell he has at least one broken rib. He can't have done this to himself.

"I'm so sorry," he whimpers. "I didn't… oh, Sherlock, how did this happen?" he runs to the consulting detective's side and gently pulls off his purple scarf to see tears in his neck made by someone's fingernails as he'd been choked. "Oh, my God." He raises a hand to touch them, but Sherlock hisses and moves slightly away, then lets a tiny squeaking noise out of his mouth when the movement hurts. "Sorry – here, put your arm around me…" he gently manoeuvres his battered flatmate until he can rest most of his weight on John instead of the doorframe. "Put as much weight on me as you can without hurting your arm, and we'll try and make it to your room." They take it step by agonising step and John hurts with every wince from the detective because of the guilt, the immense guilt because he hadn't been there, and when he'd come crawling home to him he'd all but _shouted_ at him. He slowly notices something wrong with the way he's walking, like he's favouring something, not one leg or the other but something else – _oh. _He stops dead and the detective whimpers with the pain of the jolt. "Sherlock! You've… they…" he can't bring himself to say it, and it's probably just as well, because as he realises that _John_ has realised Sherlock turns white. He doesn't know how he'd expected to get away without him noticing something else was wrong. He knows he probably would have told John – no, he definitely would have wanted John's help – but he still feels ashamed.

They make it to the bedroom after Sherlock has almost passed out in John's arms. The doctor tries his hardest to fold the detective neatly onto the bed without hurting him, but fails somehow and manages to spectacularly twist Sherlock's ribs _and_ his arm at the same time. "Right," he says after they've settled down. "I'm going to get the first-aid kit, and you're going to tell me what happened." He knows he doesn't want to know. He also knows Sherlock wants to tell him. And Sherlock comes first. Sherlock always comes first.

When he comes back the taller man hasn't moved, still lying half-curled into himself on his bed. He sits down beside him and looks at him, and is so overcome by the need to absolutely _murder_ whatever bastard could do this, to so completely tear him into pieces, that he stands up again and backs away a few paces. Sherlock is so brilliant and amazing and how dare someone hurt him? "Sherlock? I need you to roll onto your back – I'm going to undress you, is that okay? Just to see how much of you is hurt."

He worries that this won't be okay, not okay at all, that being naked in front of another man is too much _now_ and he shouldn't even have suggested it. What is he thinking? He really has no idea how to deal with this. Should he call an ambulance? Sherlock wouldn't like that. He marvels at how the man must have managed to look mostly normal to get himself into a cab and up the stairs without the cabbie wondering what was wrong. But the consulting detective slowly, gingerly rolls onto his back and looks up at John with blank grey eyes. "Is that okay?" John repeats softly.

Emotion hits those eyes suddenly and overflows; tears run down the slight beginnings of crow's-feet in the corners of his eyes. "John," he says, and his voice is hoarse and sounds painful. "Just make it better. Please."

John almost panics. He can't make this better, how could he make this better? "I'll do my best, Sherlock, I promise." He slides Sherlock's coat off his shoulders and unbuttons his shirt; too many bruises meet his eyes and he wants to give up, to _wake_ up and have fallen asleep on the sofa, worrying. But he doesn't. "I'm really sorry I snapped at you. You see, I've been right to worry about you."

Sherlock smiles and a cut on his lip splits open and drips blood into his mouth. John gently wipes it with a finger and lifts a glass of water to those barely-recognisable lips. "And I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"It wouldn't have helped," Sherlock replies. John expects him to stiffen, or jump, or show some reaction as he gently tugs down the detective's trousers, but he doesn't react past a noise of discomfort at the pain. "There were five of them. I could have handled two myself, if you were there maybe three or four, but not five. They just would have hurt you, too." John marvels briefly at the level of trust his flatmate must put in him, to have just been… hurt like this and still be completely okay with having his trousers removed.

He looks down at that body, the one that had seemed so invulnerable, that could hit anything and bounce back. Now covered in bruises and cuts and _hurt_ and he thinks he might cry himself. _I'm so sorry, Sherlock. I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry about life. How dare it. How dare it do this to you. _"Tell me what happened," he says instead, dabbing antiseptic onto the detective's forehead and wincing as he flinches. For a while the other man says nothing. Then when he _does _say something his voice sounds so painful John wants to tell him to stop, but his tone is that of a man who wants to get everything off his chest and push it away. John's mother always used to say that if you told someone your nightmares, you'd never have them again.

He wonders if it'll work this way. "Remember that case last week with the dead underage prostitute? Well, apparently the daddy was going to have a get-together with his gang last night, but of course we put him in prison. When the gang found out it was me, they started tailing me. It was stupid I didn't notice. I assumed they were Mycroft's. So I was heading back here and they cornered me and…"

John strokes his hair and picks up his hurt arm. "Go on," he whispers, not because he wants to hear – in fact he's trying not to listen – but because Sherlock needs to. He gently prods the arm, feeling for the broken bone.

"And they all started hitting me at once, I didn't know which one to take out first, and then two of them held me down while the biggest one…" He swallowed and John nodded; he knew exactly what he was going to say and knew with even more clarity that he really, _really _didn't want to hear it.

"It's okay now," he said softly. "I'm here now. I'm not leaving. I'm going to take care of you." He put the arm down gently. "It's not broken," he said, inclining his head towards it. "Your elbow's probably fractured."

"Text Lestrade," the detective commanded hoarsely. "Don't tell him what happened. Just say he needs to search for known associates of Aggie Wilson's father."

He knows the inspector will need to know why before he can commission an arrest, but he leaves it. Sherlock knows it too. Instead he sends the text silently and continues to sponge blood away from Sherlock's cuts and gently rub salve into the worst of the bruises and just let himself be there. And he sees the smile in the detective's newly-haunted grey eyes that says _just stay with me, John._

When he's done as much for the physical hurt he tucks the still-naked body under the covers, drops his jeans for comfort and climbs in, too, and though he only lets his hand touch Sherlock's he's still _there_, and he feels his flatmate's fingers curl around his palm tight, maybe a little too tight but he doesn't complain. He never complains about Sherlock. And this is why.

**A/N: So I'll be making this a two-shot as Sherlock recovers. Then I'll have to do some comic relief just for kicks. I'll probably kick it up to M next chapter too, because recovering from sexual abuse takes more than a smattering of General-Audience TLC. Please review with feedback. I know I'm not perfect and this has been hell to write, so advice that might make part 2 easier would be much appreciated.**


	3. Recovery

**_Recovery_**

**Rating: M. DEFINITELY M.  
>Warnings:<strong> Many. This ends up being** M/M SLASH **so please,** if you don't like, don't read. **I changed the rating originally but I don't think it's fair on the other chapters, most of which are only K+s**.  
>AN: **This chapter follows on directly from the last one, but I promise the next one will have nothing to do with it, so the - I'll say it again in case you missed it -** SLASH **in this chapter will not be followed up.

* * *

><p>John recognises that there are such things as boundaries. They do exist. There are things that in every friendship, every <em>relationship<em> at all, one just will not do.

Elementary.

If he even _has_ boundaries in his friendship with Sherlock, right now he'd happily break every single one of them if it might make him better. Which is lucky, because no-one, not even our anti-social consulting detective, can recover from what he's been through on his own. And it's going to take every inch of resolve he's got to help him get through this. But John Watson – BAMF ex-military John Watson – he has _plenty_ of resolve. He's needed it since his sister started kick-boxing.

On the third day Sherlock wakes up first. John's hardly slept since it happened, so Sherlock doesn't want to wake him. He sits up by himself. It hurts – God, all his muscles scream at him like he's tearing each one apart individually and his two broken ribs throw in their penny-worth of protest as well – but he manages it, and after a few deep breaths he manages to stand right up and hobble slowly into the bathroom. _Good_, he thinks disconnectedly to himself. _Progress. _

John, still conked out on the bed in his old trackies and a Rolling Stones t-shirt Harry gave him years ago, wakes up to find Sherlock gone and panics. "Sherlock!" he shouts. He hasn't the foggiest idea how the detective managed to get out of bed, but last time he checked he was in no condition to do it by himself.

But there's a gentle "mm?" from the other side of the room and when he looks up his flatmate is standing in front of his wardrobe in black pants with a periwinkle shirt hanging over his bruised shoulders. He looks so vulnerable, so hurt, it makes John's heart thump painfully. _How could someone do this to him? _he thinks again.

But the consulting detective is smiling. Smiling weakly and hesitantly, but smiling nonetheless. "You're feeling better," John observes as calmly as he can manage.

"A little bit," Sherlock replies. "Enough to get up."

John smiles back at him. They abolished 'lying to make the other person feel better' long ago. "Good," he says softly. "That's good."

They sit on the sofa and eat toast and watch John's full set of the _Star Wars _films. Sherlock tuts impatiently at the Separatist leader's first appearance and lets out an "it's obviously –" before glancing at John and closing his mouth.

"Palpatine, I know, Sherlock," John says, chuckling. "I've seen them before."

"Obvious," the detective replies disdainfully. John chuckles again because this sort of lofty sarcasm is refreshing. He hasn't been insulted by the curly-haired man in three days and it's not that he _misses_ it exactly, it's just… unnatural. "I don't know how you can _like_ this high-budget exhibitionism, John."

A sigh from the doctor this time. "Well, we could have the Bond marathon you've been promising me for ages…"

Sherlock tuts again. "This is okay."

"Oh, of course." Well, John's no amateur at deduction either, and he recognises the slightly hasty note in the deep baritone that said, _no, don't turn it off, I'm enjoying it._ So he sits back and revels in the quiet camaraderie he hardly ever gets to enjoy with Sherlock.

On the fourth day Mrs Hudson gets back from holiday. Sherlock whimpers and bolts for the bedroom as fast as his battered limbs and broken ribs will take him. "Don't tell her, John," he calls out pleadingly as her bouncy footsteps sound on the stairs. "Just tell her I'm sick. Please?"

"But you never get sick, Sherlock," he says plaintively, following the detective. John isn't good at lying. He always gets muddled. Sherlock, though, has crawled back into bed like a dog with a broken leg, looking – if possible – even more vulnerable than ever, as though the effort of the last few days is completely undone.

"Everyone gets sick sometimes," he persists. "Please, John, just tell her something."

So he goes out and pretends to read the paper for the barely-five seconds before the door clicks open and Mrs Hudson bounces through. "Mrs Hudson!" he greets warmly, putting the paper down. "How was Cornwall?"

"Oh, it was lovely, thank you dear," she bubbles happily. "How have things been here? No holes in my walls?"

He smiles. "Not this time. Sherlock's got the flu, actually." The smoothness of the lie surprises him.

A look of abject pity overtakes her sweet face. "Oh, the poor dear! Is he all right? He never gets sick, it must have hit him extra-hard." She takes a few steps towards the bedroom door. John panics inwardly and stands up.

"I think he's asleep at the moment actually, Mrs H. Just managed to pop off, you know how he is. Best not wake him."

She stops and looks understandingly back at him. He basks briefly in the sheer _warmth _of her gaze – how does she manage to be so motherly all the time without getting annoyed? "We're doing all right, thanks, Mrs Hudson. He's over the worst of it, now."

Her gaze softens and she makes her way back to the stairs. "All right, dear," she says gently. "I'll bring up some dinner for the two of you later."

He smiles again and watches her leave. Why did he let her go? She could do more for Sherlock than he ever could.

On the fifth day John is in the kitchen making toast – that's all Sherlock usually eats – when he notices the detective watching him from the doorway. He turns around and sees the look in his eyes; reluctant, embarrassed, but _needing _something. "What is it, Sherlock?"

The consulting detective, bruises spreading yellow rays under his eyes and across his cheeks, lowers his eyes. "Nothing. It doesn't matter."

"Hey." John puts down the knife and goes to stand in front of his best friend and meet his eyes. "Sherlock, it's not nothing, I can tell. Whatever you need –" Sherlock goes to protest, but John cuts him off. "_Whatever_ you need, I'm here for you, okay?"

Those beautiful slate-grey eyes search John's own for a few more seconds, looking for a sign of hesitation John refuses to show, a boundary that doesn't exist. Then he slowly, silently sinks to his knees in front of his flatmate and tugs open his fly. John supresses his gasp as he realises what the other man wants.

Sherlock takes John in his mouth and he grabs the kitchen table behind him, trying desperately to think about something else. Who is he kidding? John's attracted to Sherlock. Not enough to do anything about it – even if Sherlock wanted to it would change their relationship the way it was and _nothing_ was worth that, but enough that the feel of the detective's tongue swirling around his cock makes him respond. And that can't happen. John isn't worried about Sherlock _knowing_ anything, he probably knows already. But the reason his flatmate is on his knees before him right now is because some bastard five days ago forced him onto his knees and shoved himself into the detective's throat so hard his voice is _still _husky, and so Sherlock needs to feel clean again, needs to have someone in his mouth completely flaccid and unresponsive.

So he thinks about the rotten finger he finally found behind the bathtub this morning; how it got there he's not sure, but Sherlock must have been doing some sort of experiment with it and dropped it there, been unable to get it back and so left it there. He would have meant to say something, of course he would, but he gets distracted so easily and John had noticed two days ago that something in the bathroom _really_ didn't smell right. Well, this morning he found it. Gross.

This seems to work, so he keeps going with this line of thought until the detective finally releases him and sits back on his heels. John takes a deep breath and looks down at him, a blank and distant look on his face as he absently wipes his mouth. He's seen that look before: Sherlock is deleting the memories, replacing them with these ones, memories of someone he trusts completely. He looks up finally and opens his mouth, but John really doesn't want to hear his thank-you, so he shakes his head softly. "Whatever you need," he whispers.

Sherlock gently tucks him back into his pants and does up his trousers as if nothing happened, and then stands up and makes his own toast. John smiles after him. This is recovery, this is progress. But he knows it's not over yet.

On the sixth day they stay in bed. It's colder than it has been for the past few days and John more than Sherlock just wants to stay under Sherlock's duvet where it's warm and homely. He finds his laptop and updates his blog – carefully not mentioning anything except London winters – and gives his phone to the consulting detective to play Scrabble on.

It barely takes ten minutes for him to get bored, so John finished his rant and sets up some quirky romantic comedy about a bunch of people with stupid weddings for them both to watch. Sherlock huffs when he reads the blurb on the internet but watches it without complaint and even makes comments that say he's paying attention. Like the fact that the man in the top hat really is the _spit _of John. He has to agree the actor does look a bit like him, but if you ever caught that look on his face or those tap-shoes on his feet, please shoot him because he's obviously lost his mind. Sherlock chuckles.

After it's over he gets up – John smiles as he sees how much more agile Sherlock is now – and goes to the bathroom. He's gone a while but John doesn't worry. He deletes a few emails from his sister and one from an 'anonymous' source that's obviously from Mycroft. Sherlock's brother has, of course, been displaying more than the usual concern in light of recent events, but the detective is adamant he's not to say anything, and John agrees most of the time. He sends a nightly message reassuring the government official that Sherlock's still okay, but ignores all other correspondence.

Sherlock comes back and sits hesitantly on the edge of the bed. John closes his laptop, knowing it's serious, and looks at him. The consulting detective presses a tube of salve into John's hands.

There's only one part of Sherlock that John hasn't rubbed salve into over and over again. He looks up and meets his grey eyes steadily. "Are you sure?" he asks gently.

Sherlock nods. "I'm sorry –" he starts, but John shakes his head.

"Don't be," he replies. His flatmate nods again and strips his pyjamas off without another word. John bites his lip. He's known this was coming, of course, but it doesn't make it easier. It's going to hurt, and he hates making Sherlock hurt.

Sherlock is on his hands and knees on the bed now, his head resting on his fists on the pillow, his bruised and molested bottom in the air. John swallows. He coats his fingers in the salve, takes a deep breath in, and shuffles closer. The detective turns grey eyes his way and he smiles gently and places a reassuring hand on his back. "Hold me, John," he whispers and so John does, he sits down behind him and wraps his legs around Sherlock's long, pale ones to keep contact with him. Sherlock's breathing gets heavier, so John lets out a gentle humming noise. "Now," the detective breathes.

So John slips a finger inside him, as gently as he can, but it's not gentle enough; his flatmate cries out in pain and it's awful, the sharp feel of his inside as his finger grazes over dried blood. He bites his lip again, harder, because he can't cope with this not hurting him when it's hurting the vulnerable, damaged man in front of him so much.

It has to get worse, of course. He fits another finger in and Sherlock whimpers again; he feels something shift under his fingers and then suddenly there's warm blood around them and he feels nauseous, he has to fight with himself not to throw up for a moment as Sherlock's breaths grow more ragged. "John," the consulting detective snarls, his teeth bared tightly against the pain, "just do it. Please."

He's not sure he can. "It's going to hurt –"

"I know!" Sherlock snaps. So John pulls back, grimacing at the blood over his fingers as they slide free. He grabs a tissue and wipes them clean. "Believe me, John, if there was another way I'd choose that one." He sounds so apologetic, like it's _his_ fault. John shushes him gently.

"I know, Sherlock. I'm sorry." He stands up and drops his pyjama bottoms. He looks at Sherlock – he has to get hard for this. Thinking about yesterday in the kitchen with the detective's always-active mouth on him, it isn't difficult. He squeezes salve onto his cock and shuts his eyes briefly, rubbing himself to spread it, feeling sick again.

He kneels back on the bed and this time puts both hands on Sherlock's back gently, wondering how he's supposed to do this without seeming possessive, what he's supposed to do with his hands so that they don't grip the detective's back or hips but still maintain the vital contact. He takes a deep breath – mirrored by his flatmate – and slowly, hesitantly, ready to pull out at any second if the other man wants him to, he pushes himself inside him. He feels muscle rip and old wounds tear open and it's hard to believe this will _help_, that this will actually somehow make it heal better and hurt less, but the doctor that always manages to climb back into the forefront of his mind tells him that these scars _have_ to reopen so they can close the way John wants them to.

Sherlock lets out a guttural snarl of pain that rises in pitch until it's almost a scream and grabs the pillow with his fists so that his knuckles are white and John stops, but he shakes his head and indicates he should keep going. He holds his breath until he's completely inside his flatmate, the tip of his cock just touching the other man's prostate. The detective lets out a gentle groan and John can see tears streaming down his face. This is the hardest thing he's ever done, he knows, and he's never been able to imagine anything worse, but he pulls out slightly and pushes back in, as gently as he can. Sherlock takes a sharp breath in as he touches his prostate again and John is amazed that he can still react to that when he's in this much pain, so he does it again, just slight movements, but the detective grips the pillow harder and grates a noise of encouragement out of his throat.

Knowing that this is actually making Sherlock _aroused_ is an odd feeling. He's not sure it's a good one either – does the detective feel as sickened by his own pleasure as John does? Surely he would have told him to stop by now. Maybe after this he'll be able to trust other people in this capacity again. He pulls out a little further before pushing back in this time, and Sherlock moves under him, moaning again, his fists curling around the pillow, head lifting slightly off his hands. And watching the detective come alive underneath him, growling with almost animal need, makes John harder. Suddenly he has to think about something else again, because this is about Sherlock, not him.

His name slips from between his best friend's white lips and he grits his teeth. "Harder." It's so soft he almost doesn't hear it, and he considers pretending he didn't, but he doesn't want to make him say it again so he complies, trying to make it so that only the hits to the detective's prostate are harder, and Sherlock's moans get louder and John rattles off the stages of decomposition in his head but forgets the fifth stage as he hears his own name again, and then his flatmate's whole body shudders around him as Sherlock comes and he bites the inside of his cheek until it bleeds. He's _not_ going to come. Did Mrs Hudson bring teabags when she did their grocery shopping for them yesterday? He can't remember.

He waits for a moment, until Sherlock's hips stop rocking and his breathing slows again and his hands release the pillow. Then he slowly pulls out again. Sherlock collapses so that he's lying on his side with his eyes closed. John lies down next to him; is he okay? Or did the involuntary movement of his hips push him too far?

"Thank you, John," he whispers finally, opening his eyes. "That must have been awful for you."

John just takes Sherlock into his arms and holds him there for the longest time, until their breathing is synchronised and their hearts beat in one slow rhythm. John listens to their breaths and their heartbeat and he can feel the slow deleting of memories in the detective's big scary brain, overwritten until there is only John. It's almost peaceful.

After a few more minutes he helps Sherlock into the shower and climbs in after him; they watch the blood swirl down the plughole as all evidence that anything was wrong washes away.

**A/N: Please don't make me do that again. Why did I start this? It's awful. I apologise. **

**Right. Well, next chapter we move right away from rape and nasty things and move into a bit of much-needed comic relief. That's right; next chapter will, I promise, involve a fully-healed Sherlock, Harry Watson, and cows. Yes, you heard me right: cows. **

**Thanks for sticking with that. I love you all. Review and I'll update faster… XD**

**-for you!**


	4. No Man is an Island

_**No Man is an Island**_

**Rating: K+  
>AN: I know, I know, I promised cows. But that chapter is still in the pipeline and is becoming long and slow and I like it, but I've not finished it so I'll upload it when I have. It is coming, I promise. After that, I'm afraid I've sort of run out of ideas; if you could drop me a line and give me a prompt or an idea of some kind I'd appreciate it. Greatly. For now, here's a standard hurt/comfort fic that started off lighthearted, became disturbingly emotional, and then grew legs and ran away. **

**-for you!**

* * *

><p>John storms up the stairs. He's angry. He'd really like to be angry. Being angry would be pretty satisfying right now.<p>

He's not angry. A well-trained ear would notice that the slams of the doors and heavy footfalls on the stairs are a little _too_ loud, and the voice that apologises to Mrs Hudson for abusing the front door a little too soft.

But he should be angry, by rights, so he's trying his best. Or is it upset that he should be? He's not really sure, because he's thinking with all the anger he can muster about how Sherlock Holmes should be the last person he wants to see right now. That thought carries him right up to the door to the flat he shares with the aforementioned Sherlock Holmes.

Mention the contradiction in that last paragraph and he might just take a swing at you. Sherlock's not paying attention anyway, sitting on the settee in the dark, pale face illuminated by the light of his phone, with which he is furiously stopping a murder. To get his attention – to show the detective just how angry he is – he switches the light on without warning and slams the door for good measure.

Sherlock doesn't look up. He's in the middle of a text and an alien invasion couldn't make him put the phone down, much less a desperately BAMF Doctor John Watson. "Another one gone?" he asks idly.

And that _does_ make John a little bit angry. Angry enough to throw his jacket on the floor and snap a little bit. "For God's sake, Sherlock, they're _people_, not bowling skittles! Stop lining them up like I'm knocking them over one by one!" Sherlock arches an elegant eyebrow because this is John's metaphor, not his, but he doesn't say anything, which perhaps makes John a little bit angrier. "I can't stand the way you objectify women, Sherlock! It's sick! Most of them are actually really nice to be with – not that you'd know, would you, Sherlock Not-really-my-area Holmes? You know why it's _not really your area? _Because you've never tried! You think you're so much better than everyone else that every other person in the world is boring – well, here's news for the world's only consulting detective: you _need_ other people to survive, Sherlock. You can't do everything by yourself or you end up a sour old man muttering into his bedpan – will you _PAY ATTENTION WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!_"

John's too angry by now – properly angry this time – to notice the creases around the consulting detective's mouth from where he's trying not to laugh as he slowly lifts his grey eyes from his phone. "This is _your fault_, Sherlock," he says forcefully. "Hannah, Rebecca, Jessica, Sarah – they all ended because of you. They don't understand why I stay with you – _I _don't understand why I stay with you!"

Having said that, John calms down somewhat. Sherlock's face is expressionless, and his eyes don't leave John's until the good doctor starts to worry that maybe he hit a soft spot in there somewhere. Then Sherlock blinks slowly. "Better?" he asks.

John realises that yes, he does indeed feel much better after that little outburst, and nods sharply. "Thanks."

Sherlock returns the nod, concise, clinical. He casts his phone aside like it was never important and gets up. "Tea?"

"Please."

After this somewhat non-verbal conversation John sits down on the settee and massages his eyes with the heels of his hands, listening to the rare sounds of his flatmate making tea. He feels slightly guilty about his outburst, mostly because he knows that Sherlock knows how true everything he said was. He doesn't understand why he stays. It doesn't matter; what's important is that he does.

The detective emerges from the kitchen and passes John a cup of tea. He notices how religiously it has been made: strong and sweet, just the way he likes it. Sherlock clutches his own cup in his spiderlike hands and hovers awkwardly at the arm of the settee. The doctor sighs and shifts over. Is it strange that all he wants now is to relax into the other man's predictability and his scolding of crap television?

"I'm sorry about Hannah," Sherlock says softly, and it sounds so wrong coming from his lips. John sighs and pats the settee next to him so the consulting detective will sit down.

"It doesn't matter," he says gently as Sherlock settles his rear beside him. "It was going to happen eventually." He's still not sure how he feels about this development. Relationships with women are now completely off the table; he hasn't had one in th last nine months that progressed past the peck-on-the-cheek stage before they got fed up with the amount of house room the world's only consulting detective has in his head. He may as well pack it in.

He lets his body curl sideways and relax into Sherlock's; the detective slips an arm around his shoulders comfortably. John finally voices the thought that's been worrying his head all evening. "I'd rather have you than them anyway."

That's strange, isn't it? Sherlock leaves heads in the fridge and acid in the bath, he comes into John's room at three am with a plaintive cry of "John, I'm _bored_," he runs off without telling anyone and the good doctor has lost track of the number of times he's had to leave clinic duty to bail his flatmate out of the London penitentiary system. Sherlock doesn't understand about people and manners and what shouldn't be said out loud at dinner parties. But it's the consulting detective he wants to see when he's had a long day wiping noses and bandaging knees; it's Sherlock he needs when he's upset or angry or neither, really, only just a little put out.

Sherlock sighs. "I don't want them either," he says offhandedly. "I don't want other people. I just need you."

And that about sums it up, doesn't it? John's had a pretty decent run of sex through his eventful life and Sherlock's never cared; to have each other's company is enough. Other people don't matter.

John reaches for the remote; Sherlock sees the direction of the movement. He doesn't make a noise or anything, but he lets his head fall back in disgust. John chuckles gently. "All right," he concedes. "We won't watch anything."

Sherlock chuckles too, and John can feel it, a rumbling in his ears pressed against the detective's chest. "It's all right, if you want to."

John shakes his head. "I've had a hell of a day," he defers. He hasn't, really, not compared to a few of the days he's had with Sherlock, but it has been a long one and he's tired. "I should probably hit the hay." It's true, he should, and he doesn't want to watch television, he only made the move for the remote to nudge his flatmate back into his usual sarcastic persona. Sensitive, caring Sherlock is not someone even John sees often, and sure it's nice until you've finished the first cup of tea, but when he offers you a second it starts to get a bit disconcerting. But John doesn't move, which Sherlock realises after a few silent seconds, the knowledge bubbling another chuckle from somewhere deep in his stomach.

Yeah, it's ridiculous and anyone watching or being told the story might call it ever-so-slightly pathetic, but they don't know. John laughs too, until he actually _can't_ get up whether he wants to or not. Laughs because he could never let Sherlock go, laughs because why would anyone _want_ to, laughs because out of all the people in the world – believe me, there are billions, plenty of them must be more worthy than him – Sherlock chose _John_ to care about, to need when the rest of the world can turn its back.

Finally he sits up, disentangles himself from Sherlock's arm and stretches. "Thanks," he says to the detective as he downs the last of his tea.

"For what?" Sherlock asks idly, picking his phone up again to find that Lestrade has the murderer behind bars.

"You know," John says vaguely. "For being there."

Sherlock frowns. "You know I'll always be there, John." He sounds almost scolding; how can the doctor still not know that?

The two both sleep in John's bed that night, not holding each other, just lying side by side, Sherlock's prominent anklebone gently touching John's thigh, each reassuring the other that they're still there, there forever, there to stay.

It's like Jon Bon Jovi said, isn't it? No man is an island.


	5. Cattle Rustling

**Rating: T  
>Warnings: <strong>More angst and angry John, a few mildly offensive sexuality slurs and severe bovine distress.  
><strong>AN: **Aaand, here it is! I'm sorry it's taken so long and become half the story I wanted it to be in about twice as many words, and warped from comic relief into angst. I guess h/c does that to you. I have no idea what to do next and would appreciate some ideas! I've been reading a lot of zombie apocalypse fiction and was thinking of trying my hand at that, but I don't think I'd be able to keep it at a short-and-sweet hurt/comfort oneshot, which is what I'm trying to do here. This chapter excepted, of course. Things are taking longer at the moment because I've started writing a version of 'Megamind' with the characters from Sherlock and I'm really enjoying it, so it's taking up most of my attention. But I thought I should scribble this out first.

For my anonymous reviewer _**Putmoneyinthypurse,**_thank you for making my day and I'm sorry for the vividly nauseating images you must have been plagued by. I will of course take this opportunity to recommend that you read some of my other work; I think you'd like _On A Different Note_, and judging by your penname you'd like my puppeteer-Moriarty fic _Hell and Night_, too. Hope you can collect your somewhat dissembled self. Thank you so much for your reviews, I really, really appreciate them. I'd love it if you could sign in so I could reply to you in person. Enough blowing of my own trumpet? Okay.

**-for you!**

**Cattle Rustling**

Sherlock is – and by God, this has got to be his least favourite word in the English language – _bored. _

He's tried not to be. He really has, John, honest – but there doesn't seem to be any helping it today. There's nothing to do. No-one cares enough about the world to sacrifice their own ego and give him a call or a case. Molly's on holiday and the last time he tried to smuggle body parts from the morgue without her was a dismal failure, not helped by the fact that Lestrade refused to back him up. Those ears had been _central_ to the case in question, how could he not see that?

Anyway, the woman who covers her shift when she's on leave had an abusive father and so is more than a little uptight and controlling and fearsome when angered. He'd known that before he angered her, of course. He'd just slightly misjudged the _extent_ of her fearsomeness.

This feeling is unbearable. It really is like an itch under the skin, like every muscle is itching and Sherlock can't possibly itch them all at the same time, and he's tired to the point of being completely beyond sleep so he lies unmoving on the sofa and experiments with how long his body can lie there and scream restlessly at him to _bloody DO SOMETHING _before it actually physically explodes.

He gives up and twitches convulsively; the scream is sated for the barest of moments before starting up again, high and frenzied, millimetres below his skin. In this fit of _shutupshutupshutup _movement he vaults the back of the sofa and catches sight of the fridge through the doorway.

"_I can't remember everything, Sherlock. I'm not like you." John slammed the fridge door. The yellow Post-it bearing the note 'buy milk' grinned back at him and he huffed, empty-handed, glancing at the cup of black tea on the bench. Sherlock smirked._

"_How's it working, then, John?" he said insouciantly, and was rewarded with a glare bearing the emotional maturity of a nine year-old. _

"_Shut up. Most of the time it works. I see the note and I remember. You know what, Sherlock? If you were feeling unusually helpful one day, _you_ could have a look at them and see if there are any you could do."_

_Sherlock just looked at him, because they both knew the statistical likelihood of _that_ happening. "All right, then," John relented, "if you're feeling exceptionally bored, perhaps."_

"_Hmm," he'd mused teasingly. "Errand-bored. May it never come to that."_

Sherlock sweeps dramatically into the kitchen. Well, it has. Yes, it has certainly come to that.

But there is only one forlorn note, in a shade of yellow too washed-out to be cheerful. Sherlock plucks it listlessly from the fridge and holds it in his hand. _Call Harry. _The string of numbers underneath dances in front of his eyes; when Sherlock is in this state everything _dances_ tauntingly.

Well, that isn't much use. It's not something he can occupy himself with. He pictures John's face if he did call her; that sort of _you-did-WHAT?_ look he gets on a fairly regular basis, usually when looking at his flatmate over the top of a wound in his own flesh or somebody else's decomposing body part. Actually, now he thinks of it, it's that look that usually spurs him on.

He drops the note and picks up the phone. He knows John wrote the note because he's been feeling guilty for a while about not having made the slightest contact with his sister for months, so he dials the number he memorised thirty seconds ago, lifts the phone to his ear, and thinks of that look. John doesn't have plans next weekend, does he? Well, you do now, buddy.

"_Hello?" _

Sherlock puts on his best _hi-I'm-normal_ telephone voice. "Hi, is that Harry Watson?" he asks brightly.

"_Um… no… it's Lucy here." _Oh. He scrambles for the piece of paper on the floor; did he get a digit wrong? _"Harry's gone into town. She'll be back in a few hours. Can I take a message?"_

Ah-ha. "Oh. Yes, it's – no, wait." Hardly as coherent as his usual brain-flow, but Sherlock has just had something of a humdinger. What if he and Harry's new partner Lucy could arrange some sort of surprise get-together? The Watsons would hate them for a while, but John's used to that kind of pleasure by now. He's come to realise that Sherlock operates in a way that hurts at first, but when your brain finally catches up to where his was when it started hurting you suddenly don't mind at all. "My name's Sherlock, I'm living with Harry's brother John at the moment."

There is silence on the other end of the phone. A sort of breathy, pregnant silence that Sherlock has come to recognise as the sound of being… well, recognised. _"Oh! Yes, Harry mentioned you – the private detective."_

"Consulting detective," he corrects out of habit. "Of course she did. I only called because John's been saying that he should get in touch with Harry again but he's not quite sure how, so I thought I'd step in." And it's not even a lie. Sometimes, just after John's left the room, Sherlock lies on the sofa and refuses to go to bed and wonders what Doctor John Watson has done to him and how on Earth he managed it. Sherlock's life sometimes seems to be split into two parts: before John and after him.

Before John there was only Sherlock. He did what he wanted when he wanted to, insulted cops and took advantage of good people like Mrs Hudson to get his way. But now there are moments when John makes him want to do something just to make the doctor smile, just to make him keep caring. John will say that that's what friends are for.

"_Great," _Lucy on the other end of the phone says happily. She has a deep voice for a woman, and Sherlock guesses that she and Harry would look almost exactly like your stereotypical lesbian couple. Which isn't what he'd expected. "_Oh… we've got my parents coming over next weekend. And then we're busy until… God, I'm sorry." _

Sherlock actually bites his lip. You see this? This man leaning against the kitchen doorframe biting his lip because the clever little surprise he'd planned in the last few minutes for his flatmate isn't going to work? This would never have happened without Doctor John Watson. "What about tomorrow?"

Lucy laughs. "_Oh. Well, we're supposed to be doing a spot of cattle-rustling tomorrow. I don't really know if that's your thing."_

Sherlock smiles in what John would call a devious manner. "Sounds perfect. We'd love to help."

* * *

><p>"Where the hell are we going?" John asks as the cab pulls off the dusty road and onto a simple gravel thing. "Sherlock, for God's sake, if we've been in this cab for an hour just to go and see some interesting farm homicide, I swear…"<p>

"Oh, relax, John," Sherlock chides amusedly. "This stretch of farmland hasn't seen a homicide in at least fifty years."

He glances across at John, smiling tightly. The doctor rolls his eyes. "Then what are we doing here?"

Sherlock smiles wider. "It's a surprise."

John gives that grumpy little huff Sherlock has come to know quite well. "I hate surprises."

The cabbie stops before a metal farm-gate. "Can't go no further, sir," he says brightly. "Road stops past that gate."

John groans; Sherlock, however, is in fine spirits. "Thank you," he says brightly to the cabbie, ignoring John's look of shock at the expression. "Come on, John."

"Look, if we're here… Christ, I don't know what can have got you this excited… if we're here excavating the remains of Jack the Ripper or something, I am getting back in this cab."

Sherlock smirks. "Calm down, John. You'll like this surprise." Then he frowns. Will he? "Well, I think you will. Maybe it was a bad idea."

John now looks like he is mere seconds and a breath of wind away from having a heart attack. "Maybe it was a – for God's sake, Sherlock, last time I heard those words come out of your mouth you'd set fire to the shower curtain."

Sherlock chuckles – that _had_ been a bad idea. And he'd known it from the start. They reach the door and Sherlock rings the buzzer. John looks around, puzzled. "I've seen that car before," he muses. "Sherlock, what –"

The door opens and John suddenly knows exactly what. "Harry?"

The sallow-faced woman who has opens the door is nothing like what Sherlock expected Harry Watson to look like. "John! What are you doing here?"

John looks at Sherlock, who has suddenly become _extremely_ interested in the water-feature by the door. "I'm not entirely sure." Sherlock looks back at him, finally, and John gives him an _I'll-talk-to-you-later _glare. "Harry, this is my flatmate Sherlock."

Harry looks the detective up and down and smirks. "Flatmate, eh? All right, I'll buy that. Lucy!" A more thickset woman with cropped hair and ruddy cheeks appears at her shoulder. "This is my brother John and his flatmate Sherlock."

Lucy winks at Sherlock and shakes John's hand. "I'd invite you in, but we were actually just about to go out to get the cows –"

"Oh, no," Sherlock interrupts quickly, "we're here to help." John looks on in abject terror as his flatmate pulls two pairs of – are those _Wellingtons? _– from the large bag John had refrained from asking the contents of for the whole cab ride.

* * *

><p>"Sherlock," John hisses – why he's whispering he's not quite sure – "this is a bad idea. This is <em>such<em> a bad idea. Why did you do this?"

Sherlock smirks. "The note, John."

John's had about as much as he can take, squared, of Sherlock's cryptic _are-you-really-stupid-enough-to-not-understand? _sentences. "What note?"

"You left a note on the fridge to call Harry. So I did."

This catches the doctor a little off-guard. "You… just did it?"

The detective shrugs. "I was bored."

"Oh. Of course." John looks up the hill again, and up it and up it because it's a rather impressive one, and wonders how his sister could have turned into a right proper farmer without him knowing. And wonders even harder how he'd ended up at the bottom of a hill with Sherlock Holmes waiting for his sister and her lover to push a cow their way so they could wave their arms and look frightening. "Oh, this is a bad idea," he vocalises again, noticing with some kind of savage pleasure that Sherlock has that look on his face that he gets when John repeats himself. "It's all right for you, you're more intimidating than I am."

Sherlock knows he is many things, and that intimidating, should he so wish, is one of them. But he knows that there are _no_ circumstances in which he is _more_ intimidating than John Watson. "You underestimate yourself, Doctor Watson," he says languidly. "Size or not, I'm afraid you cut a far more intimidating figure than I do."

John considers this. "What about –"

"Elementary. He ran away from me because he saw you coming up behind me."

"He wasn't even looking at me!" John protests. Sherlock smirks.

"Face it, John, with your distinctly military air you can be enormously intimidating."

John takes a deep breath and Sherlock takes a moment to appreciate the effort the doctor goes to for him. "Sherlock," he says, perfectly calm, "Harry is about to lead three cows around that corner. Cows do not look at military history. They look at stature. You're taller than me – much taller than me, which you're constantly reminding me, thank you – so you're more of a threat."

Sherlock shrugs this off. "How do _you_ know what cows are scared of?" he asks condescendingly. He forgets that John may not be a genius in the way he is, but John paid attention at school and hasn't quite mastered the technique required to delete unnecessary information. And probably wouldn't use it if he ever did, because he's been around long enough to know that the strangest piece of information might come in handy one day.

Apparently this is one of those times. "How do I – Sherlock, it's – oh. Right. Sorry." John takes a deep breath and actually makes soothing motions with his hands. "The Earth goes round the sun. People get upset when you tell them they're stupid. And most animals are frightened of animals that are bigger than them."

Sherlock thinks this one through. The earth goes round the sun – yes, well, he knows that, now, doesn't he? It's been repeated enough to be drilled into his head past the point of no return. People get upset when you tell them they're stupid – someone he respected had told him once that it's not an insult if it's true. They may have been being sarcastic, but that's irrelevant. And the last one? As Harry and Lucy's shouts get louder around the hill, he's forced to admit that that, too, sounds fairly logical.

So he draws himself up to his full height and sucks in a deep breath in case that will make him taller – a vain hope, but it has been known to be effective – and is vaguely aware of John pitifully doing the same beside him. Then a large cow with rather impressive horns charges around the corner, followed by two black calves.

Sherlock panics. He's a consulting detective, and sure he's used to unusual situations but this – standing stock still beside an electric fence while three horned, angry cows charge towards him - this is new territory for the genius. He hears John let out something that sounds suspiciously like a squeal, and his brain clicks back on just in time for him to throw up his hands warningly.

The lead cow, which happens to be the biggest, black and menacing with horns reminiscent of something big, black and menacing, veers off to one side. Luckily it's the side that Harry and Lucy wanted the cows to go, because the other two follow the biggest one and neither Sherlock nor John would have the faintest idea how to correct them if they'd gone the wrong way. The detective and his doctor watch as the bull and the two calves slow down halfway up the neighbour's drive; it's not until a few minutes after that that Harry and Lucy come around the corner.

"Perfect," Lucy pants. She has a happy, ruddy face and in the exertion it's gone even redder, but she's beaming and Sherlock, in his usual disconnected way, can see why Harry likes her. They're quite similar, too; they make a nice couple. They'll probably make a nice couple for a long time. She waves an arm towards the cows. "If you two bring up the rear, we'll go one on each side." And she's off again, running in a wide arc until she's up alongside the cows. Harry runs after her, arcing in the opposite direction with barely a glance in her brother's direction.

John, however, sends _plenty_ of glances in Sherlock's direction. He's beginning to regret this. Why had he butted in and tried to fix John's family problems? It's not like John tries to make him have lunch with Mycroft.

Oh no, wait, there was once. Or twice. At least once a month, actually. Sherlock brushes off John's glares, instead tugging at his jacket sleeve. "Come on, John!" he cries like he's having the time of his life – and actually, now that the initial panic has worn off, the thrill of the chase is starting to pulse in his veins – and takes off after the two women, his Wellingtons making that delightful plodding noise that only Wellingtons in a muddy driveway can make. John sighs, and follows.

By the time they get up the drive and into the field that leads to the cattleyard, Sherlock's actually starting to look on the animals with something resembling _fondness_. All three of them are young, he realises, and when he asks about it Harry softens slightly and tells him that their mother is on someone else's land frolicking with their bull, and the payment for that "service" is any female calves that are born out of it. Charming. He concludes from this that the aim of today's jaunt is to load the smallest calf, the girl, into the horsefloat he can see by the cattleyards.

The cynic inside him smiles wryly and says, _good luck_.

Lucy gestures at them to spread out and close in on the bored-looking bovines to force them through the gates into the cattleyards. Sherlock goes one way; John makes a step towards him. Always touchy about his height, apparently John is _really_ feeling it today. But Harry clears her throat, looks pointedly in the other direction and says in a voice that is _already_ grating on Sherlock's ears, it's anybody's guess how John put up with it all those years, "No, John, you go that way."

John gives Sherlock a slightly pleading look, but goes where his sister directs him. The biggest cow turns its head towards him and lows gently. Sherlock can't stop the chuckle as he takes another step forwards and the cows jerk away from him, see Lucy, and stop, panicking, aware that they're being backed into a corner. It's a little bit like chasing criminals. Well, not really, but he can see the resemblance. The bull tries a step towards him so he lifts his hands slightly and it reconsiders; the two calves shrink behind it. He suddenly wants to laugh, now things are predictable again in good ways and John, too, is smothering a smile.

They back the cows into the yard and manage to shut the gates one by one until all three bovines are trapped in one small pen. Sherlock stands on a bench beside the yard-press and watches the two women chase the animals around, opening and closing gates. He's not sure why he feels content.

"Sherlock," Lucy calls suddenly from the pen closest to him, "can you pull on that rope quickly and open the yard-press? We want the cows to go through one by one so we can trap the one we want." Obligingly, Sherlock pulls on the rope and the rusty red metal screams in protest, but opens slowly. Sensing the out, the biggest cow makes a break for it and runs into the yard-press; without prompting, out of instinct, Sherlock flicks the rope again and the yard-press shuts, trapping the animal. Lucy laughs.

"Well done," she says genially. "Now pull the rope on the other side and let him out." Sherlock does so. He looks back at John, standing next to him on the rail and looking slightly put out.

"Do you want to do the next one?" he mutters teasingly. John looks as though a Herculean effort is the only thing preventing a childish display of his tastebuds, but shoves his flatmate over and grabs the rope.

The next calf proves infinitely more tricky. The two of them that are left are smaller, now, and though John and Lucy try together to time the opening and closing of the press so that only one calf gets through, somehow the other always manages to squeeze their way in there with it. Sherlock watches Harry, her sallow face reddened by the exertion of chasing the animals around the myriad pens, mud splattered up her legs, hazel eyes that are the only link between the siblings fixed on the difficulties her brother and her girlfriend are having with her pet cows, mouth curling upwards into the slightest of smiles. And Sherlock is immensely glad; if things keep going like this, the day could turn out damn-near perfect.

After a few more minutes of this, Harry interjects. "Just keep both of them in there and try and get the girl's head wedged in the other side," she suggests. Sherlock thinks this sounds rather painful, but Lucy looks over at her gratefully and he deduces that this isn't a terrible idea. So the Watson sister swings her solid legs over the fence and takes her brother's place, nudging him aside with a sisterly 'scuse-me. John's hip bumps against Sherlock's as he is moved aside and the detective wonders for a moment whether this was unnecessarily rude of her, but John's face isn't telling.

A few minutes of the two women manoeuvring gates and calves manage to see the youngest cow jammed at the neck in the far side of the yard-press. Sherlock can't help the look of distaste as she writhes and thrashes around in panic. He looks at John; the doctor shares the same look. He supposes it can't be helped.

Harry slips around until she's facing the captive calf, a halter in her hands. The girl sees her coming and bellows, low and desperate, thrashing and charging against the metal press. Sherlock flinches away; the pure _suffering_ in the calf's voice is awful. It screams and screams and rams itself into the metal, Harry stepping back out of harm's way. Sherlock feels a hand touch his and grabs it, hardly registering that it must belong to John before he squeezes it and shuts his eyes and wishes he could shut his ears too. John shuffles closer, this is affecting him too, and Sherlock presses his body into his flatmate's and hopes this is comfort.

Perhaps it's lucky neither woman is looking at them; Lucy is trying to stroke soothing lines down the calf's rump without getting her fingers crushed and Harry is taking deep breaths before making another pass at the head, trying to slip the halter around its neck without getting impaled on the stubs of baby horns.

Sherlock somehow manages to slip away from it all in his mind, to focus on John's hand clutching his like a lifeline and the doctor's stocky side against him and drift upwards with that until he can't hear the screams anymore. Then he opens his eyes and it's over; somehow Harry has managed to work the halter behind the calf's ears and attach the lead-rope to it, and Lucy's telling John to open the yard-press again and let them go.

Harry is bowled over in the charge; John laughs as she lands on her bottom in the mud. Sherlock smiles, too, but he's aware of the delicacy of their relationship as John's sister glares up at him, but Lucy's laughing too and so she has no choice but to shrug and laugh too, a genuine sort of rumble that goes right to her hazel eyes and she looks like John when she laughs, Sherlock notices. She should laugh more often.

Eventually they get up and the two women chase the three cows around the myriad pens in the yard, trying to stamp on the lead-rope and control the calf they want to control. Sherlock wonders if the two of them should be helping, standing on the ledge beside the yard-press, their sides still touching even though they've dropped hands. Sherlock knows Harry won't understand their relationship. But the two women seem perfectly synched, and they've done this before without help, he knows. So he props his elbows on the fence and watches.

He knows he could never do this for a living. Or as a hobby. He'd been having fun before, but the sight of the calf bellowing desperately and slamming herself into the yard-press is still there when he closes his eyes and it _hurts_. He knows he's not the most compassionate of people, and that John doesn't like this, and that he hurts people and sees people hurt and killed all the time and _likes_ it, in a disconnected way that means it's work and it's exciting, but this is different. This is an animal out of its wits with fear, and it's awful.

Interesting.

Harry ends up horizontal more than once in the ensuing chase; for some reason, Lucy manages to remain on her feet even when she's holding the rope, leaning backwards on her heels to counter the weight of the still-struggling calf. Step by step, she drags it back into the pen closest to the horse-float and ties it to the fence. Harry, panting, covered in mud, closes the gate behind her, trapping them in.

Sherlock looks around. There's so much open space around the float's door; with the calf still struggling like she's being led to her death – God knows what it'd be like to work in an abattoir – the backing-into-a-corner trick won't work and the number of times Lucy or Harry has been forced to let go of the rope suggest _dragging_ her in won't work either. He casts a glance at the square pen on the other side of the paddock and jumps down off the ledge. "John," he says softly, nodding towards it. John – bless him – understands and follows.

Together they drag the pen until it bridges the gap between the float and the fence. Lucy watches approvingly. "Make good farmers, you two," she says lightly. John and Sherlock look at each other.

"I hardly think so," Sherlock drawls. John just snorts. As if to prove this point, they both jump the pen so that it's between them and the frantic calf as Lucy anchors herself firmly to the post and Harry opens the gate; the cow makes a few blind charges at the pen and at Harry, and Lucy narrowly avoids being speared by the blunt horns; then suddenly, over without warning, she has run up the ramp into the float and Lucy's dropped the leadrope and jammed up the door and Harry's holding it shut while she slams the bolts home.

Silence but for the sounds of panting and the muffled lows and thuds from the cow in the horse-float. Sherlock looks at John and John looks at Sherlock and Sherlock looks at Harry and Harry looks at Lucy and Lucy smiles.

"Well now," she says happily, "that wasn't so hard." Sherlock looks back at John, whose face is endearingly arranged in a you-_what?_ expression. "Lunch, anyone? I baked bread."

John shakes his head in something that looks like amazement, but makes no further reply, so Sherlock steps in. "Sounds lovely. Thanks, Lucy. Are you just going to leave the cow in there?"

He can see that John appreciates the role-reversal in today's adventures; Sherlock's been the polite one all day. Lucy grins brightly, missing the dark look that passes between them at Sherlock's smug face. "She'll be fine in there till after lunch. Then I'll drive up to Maureen's."

So the four of them walk up the two long drives and back to Harry and Lucy's. Sherlock tries to engage Harry in typical conversation (_"So, how did you two meet?"_) and is slowly overtaken by John. As they get to the front door, the two women finally finish their unnecessarily long story of someone's bag breaking outside the supermarket and turn the conversation their way.

"What about you guys? How'd you meet?" Lucy asks. Sherlock smiles gently.

"A mutual acquaintance introduced us," he summarised fondly. John snorts.

"Yeah, and then you were bloody rude," he retaliates, though Sherlock is pleased to note that his tone has slipped from genuinely sulky to just faking it. He feigns outrage, so John elaborates. "The only thing you said to me was my own life story. Oh, and that you'd left your riding crop in the mortuary."

Harry trips over her own Wellingtons on her way through the door. "What?"

Sherlock smiles winningly. "I'm a consulting detective," he excuses. "I help the police solve murders. There was this one guy who they all thought was whipped to death with a riding crop, but I was sure the bruising wasn't right…" the story carries them inside the house and to the kitchen table, cradling cups of tea. The house smells gorgeously like fresh, warm bread.

It's nice, Sherlock thinks in surprise, with Harry and Lucy bumbling about together in the kitchen, chatting away nicely about how different programs like CSI are from reality, John laughing, the two women occasionally bumping into each other and laughing with puppydog eyes full of love. They've been together long enough to have moved past the honeymoon phase of their relationship, so Sherlock mutters gently to John when they're not listening that they suit each other.

John just smiles happily. Lucy eventually plonks a platter on the table with a belletristic selection of sliced bread and ham and an assortment of salad items. It looks lovely. Sherlock, surprisingly, is starving, so he tucks in. John sends him another surprised look.

"So," Harry says snidely as she sits down beside them and nudges John conspiratorially. Alarm bells fail to go off in anyone's head. "You managed to successfully steer the conversation away from you two. Now I'm dragging it back."

John laughs into his ham sandwich. "Fair enough." Sherlock takes a tentative bite of his own, finds it more than palatable, so tucks in with gusto.

"Go on, then," Harry prompts. "Give me the juicy details."

John finally gets it. "Oh! Harry, we're not… you know. We're friends."

Sherlock smirks. He'd known this would come eventually. Harry would try and categorise their relationship. The one that didn't fit into any of the boxes. The Watson sister's eyebrows skyrocket. "Yeah, like hell you are. You might be able to fool your normal friends, Johnny-boy, but you can't fool me. I saw you holding hands before."

John sighs. "Yeah. Well, I'm not sure I expect you to understand but Sherlock and I are just friends."

Sherlock frowns at that last bit. _Just _friends? What could possibly be _more_ than what they were? "I don't know if _just_ friends is really the right description," he says offhandedly, making John look at him sharply. What's happening to him today? He's moved from compassion to domestic bliss to something almost akin to jealousy in the space of the morning. "Or would you add a new dimension to being lovers that I wouldn't have experienced, too?"

There's a moment when they look at each other at Harry's kitchen table and they both remember the same day and the same thoughts that happened on that day, and John feels guilty and Sherlock knows it. He's right, of course. There's nothing in the world that could be more than what they already have. "No, of course, sorry."

Harry looks from one to the other and seems reluctant, but accepts it without question. "Okay." She tucks into her sandwich and Lucy starts a new conversation briskly.

"We're thinking about getting beehives," she says happily. "What do you think?"

Sherlock loves bees. It's one of those irrational loves that he really shouldn't have, like strawberry jam and scarves, but it's there nonetheless and the thought of having acquaintances with _beehives_ is insanely attractive. "Yes!" he says immediately. John laughs. "I love bees."

Lucy laughs. "Me too. My parents used to keep bees, and I was always upset when they wouldn't let me go near them. When I moved to the city for university my main concern was that I wouldn't be able to have a beehive there. Now I've got Harry and this house," she reaches across and takes her spouse's hand, "I can get them again."

Harry laughs nervously. "I have to say, the thought scares me a little," she says. John laughs too.

"I know how you feel," he says emphatically. Sherlock looks at him in surprise.

"Really? Which hobbies of mine do you find intimidating?"

John rolls his eyes. "The ones where I open the fridge to find that you've stored a jar of severed testes on top of the salad I was going to have for lunch. The ones where I go to have a bath to find that I'm competing for space in the tub with some new kind of Frankenstein monster."

This is exaggeration, of course. The testes had been kept well away from any food items and the Frankenstein monster had been one, definitely inanimate, corpse that had been recently autopsied, hence the scars. But Sherlock concedes the point anyway. "Okay. That's fair. In my defence, I find the rate at which you're destroying your brain with all the IQ reruns frankly alarming."

"QI," John corrects automatically. Harry laughs.

After a while, Harry excuses herself to the bathroom. John turns to Lucy.

"Does she still drink?" he asks quietly. Lucy smiles fondly after her partner.

"Every now and then. She's come a long way from her ex-wife, though."

Sherlock never did find out what happened between Harry and Clara. He's mildly interested because the relationship is something that he deduced from looking at Harry's old phone alone, and he's always sort of wanted to fill in the gaps in his picture. In the course of today he's gained a face to go with the name, but the important questions haven't been answered. He knows that generally this sort of question isn't acceptable in this sort of social situation, so he doesn't ask. But he's desperately curious.

John recognises the curious face and sighs. "Later, Sherlock," he says gently, and Sherlock can buy that. "You've really changed her," he says, turning back to his sister's girlfriend. "I appreciate that."

"She does too," Lucy replies. They smile.

Harry sits back down, and Sherlock can tell from a look that she's managed to sneak a drink in somewhere. Not enough to be obvious, but just enough so that the addict inside her will be satisfied for a moment. He narrows his eyes. He knows that feeling.

He excuses himself after her. When the door is shut and locked behind him, he thinks furiously. Harry is lying to Lucy about her drinking habits. Should he tell John? John who's so happy taking part in the fairytale reunion going on in the living room?

He pulls the lid off the top of the toilet, and sure enough, there's a half-full bottle of whiskey bobbing around with the water. He feels sick. Why do drunks always hide their alcohol in the toilet tank? How can they possibly think it's safe in there when they must know that every other drunk in the world stashes it there?

He takes it out and replaces the lid, gently leaving the bottle on top. Lucy will find it there, even if John doesn't.

When he gets back to the table John looks at him in surprise. "That was quick," he jokes.

Sherlock smiles and joins in, amping his voice up an octave until it resembles a child's. "I washed my hands." Actually he didn't, but given that he didn't use the toilet either he thinks that's okay.

He looks at Harry, and Harry looks back and in that look he can tell that she knows. She knows he's found the bottle and something shifts in her expression from relaxed and happy to vicious and tense. "You two _are_ shagging," she insists stubbornly. "You must be. You're like an old married couple."

Sherlock tries to just shrug it away, but inexplicably John rises to the bait. "Oh, and anyone who acts like they _live_ together must be shagging, Harry? Just because _you_'ve never lived with anyone for more than three weeks without shagging them means that I can't either? For God's sake, drop it."

Harry's piggy little eyes narrow into an expression Sherlock will _never_ see on John's, and suddenly the resemblance just isn't there anymore. "Well, you want to, anyway," she retorts childishly. "I always knew you did. Couldn't shut up about _Sherlock bloody-BRILLIANT Holmes._" Sherlock watches in dismay as the peaceable family conversation billows into a full-blown shouting match. "That's why you joined the army, too, isn't it, John? All the man-on-man action?"

John snaps, getting to his feet. "You're one to talk, Harry! Are you _seriously_ questioning my sexuality like it's a _bad_ thing?" Sherlock casts a seriously frightened look at Lucy, whose cheerful face bears the same shocked, nonplussed expression as his own. She returns it and shrugs bewilderedly. How did this happen so fast? It wasn't like Sherlock was going to _say_ anything about the whiskey bottle.

"You always acted like you were braver than me, John. More _noble_. The soldier striding into bloody battle – funny, isn't it? That I'm the one sitting here completely open about being gay and you're still hiding in your little closet too piss-scared to come out and tell your best friend you secretly lust over his arrogant arse."

Sherlock blinks at the insult. He's been called arrogant before, sure, but he'd been trying so hard to be nice today. John, too, reacts more to the insult to Sherlock than the comments about his sexuality. "How dare you," he snarls, his face red and angry. "How dare you – you don't know anything about Sherlock and I. God, Harry, I thought you'd changed!" Sherlock can hear tears in John's voice and this shocks him, shocks him more than the screaming calf had. "I bet you've even got a bottle of whiskey stashed away somewhere, haven't you? You haven't changed at all." He wants to fold the smaller man in his arms and rock him and hold him there until his stupid sister doesn't matter anymore, but he knows this would just make her worse. John takes a deep breath that manages to calm him down not a bit.

"Come on, Sherlock," he says, calling the shots for once. The detective recognises that this is usually his line, but doesn't say anything. John's not really in the mood. "It looks like we've outstayed our welcome. It was nice to meet you, Lucy."

Before any of the other three have a chance to process this, Sherlock's wrist is claimed by John's hot palm and he's being dragged out the door, which slams behind them. Sherlock, still not fully understanding what happened in there, shies away from John's thunderous face.

The army doctor stomps off down the drive. Sherlock orders a cab as he follows; it'll be a while. John waits until they're at the gate, out of earshot of the house, before he blows up. "What the _hell_ were you thinking?" he shouts. Sherlock frowns; he's fairly sure Harry started that argument without him. He opens his mouth to say so, but John isn't having any of it. "Oh, that's right, you were _bored_. You thought you'd come and visit my sister because you were _fucking bored."_ It's the first time Sherlock has heard John swear, and he doesn't like it. "You couldn't even _tell_ me? Give me some warning this was going to happen?"

Sherlock feels about six inches tall. "It was a surprise," he says in a voice that reflects his revised height.

"You know I hate surprises," John reprimands, calming down slightly. Sherlock almost smiles in relief, but before his face has time to process this intention the moment's gone, replaced by another wall of anger. "And you _know_ my sister and I don't get on! _How_ could you think this was a good idea!"

Sherlock is shell-shocked. He doesn't quite understand how the situation, which had been going so nicely, had turned on him so quickly. "You said you wanted to see her," he says plaintively.

"I said _I_ wanted to see her!" John fumes. "Not that I wanted _you_ to drag me out to her new _house_ and go bloody _cattle-rustling _with her new _girlfriend!"_

"But you would have forgotten," Sherlock defends desperately. "John –"

"No, Sherlock! I know you don't think other people's brains should be able to deal with normal life, but I've managed with mine for thirty-eight years and I _don't_ need you to try and patch up my family for me! This – this is _exactly_ what I didn't want to happen, this is why I hadn't called Harry yet. I was just going to meet her for coffee somewhere, I didn't want her to…"

"What?" Sherlock asks, suddenly scandalised at the thought of what that sentence was going to be. "You didn't want her to _what_, John, meet me? Like you don't bring your girlfriends home, like you're ashamed of me?"

"That's not – maybe if I'd had _time_, if _we'd_ had time, if we'd been able to _prepare_ ourselves, we could have tried to be civil with each other, but I didn't want… I didn't want her to…"

A crazy thought flicks through Sherlock's head. Maybe he'd underestimated the extent of John's attraction to him. Maybe John is really in agony like Harry had suggested. "You didn't want her to _what?"_ he whispers desperately, because he has to know, because if John is hurting because he wants Sherlock sexually then for God's sake he can have him, he can have him body and soul if that's what he wants, as long as he stays.

"I didn't want her to _ruin you!" _John yells, his face angry and red and awful, his hands clenched into white-knuckled, shaking fists. "Harry _ruins everything_ and I didn't want her to ruin _you_, because you – your friendship, this stupid, twisted, _incredible_ friendship we've had, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me and I didn't want her to ruin this, too!"

"She hasn't ruined it," Sherlock says quietly. John's voice is on the edge of tears again, raised so loud the neighbours so impossibly far away must be able to hear him, and Sherlock's scared, really scared, probably for the first time ever. _She hasn't ruined it, John, please tell me she hasn't. Tell me that jumped-up whisky-soaked bull-queer hasn't ruined the only friendship I've ever really had – I didn't know what friendship was until I met you, you're the only friend I have and I can't lose you, John, John, please don't leave me. _"I'm really sorry, John," he squeaks. "I just thought…"

John looks at him and all the anger drains visibly from his face like water from a bathtub. He sort of sags inwardly, completely deflated. "I know," he says. "It's not your fault. I just… why does Harry have to…"

His face crumples and suddenly he's crying, _John is crying_, and Sherlock is so overcome by shock he doesn't know what to do for a moment and just stands there, watching his military little doctor collapse into himself, tears coursing down his weather-beaten cheeks. Then the instinct he shuts off for everyone except John kicks in and he folds his flatmate into his long, pale arms and holds him there until John is wiping his nose on Sherlock's periwinkle shirt and sniffing helplessly. "Why does she _get_ to me so much?" he says finally.

Sherlock knows about how annoying siblings are. "Brothers and sisters have that power," he says wisely. "It's the point of their existence. They know exactly how to make you angry and they drive deep and hard."

John chuckles as a cab rounds the corner and steps away from Sherlock gratefully. "You're lucky Mycroft doesn't do that."

Sherlock snorts derisively. "He _does,_" he insists petulantly. "That's what happens every time you make me have lunch with him." And it's mostly true; although both Sherlock and Mycroft pretend to be above such stupid rivalry no-one can deny it exists, and the two of them each vie for power over the other in petty, childish ways that can be ignored at first sight but always come back to haunt Sherlock afterwards. He'll lie in bed and wonder if he's _really_ as horrible a person as his brother paints.

John coughs delicately, wipes his eyes and opens the door of the cab. "I'm very sorry," he says in a farcical polite voice. "I'll stop forcing you to have lunch with your brother."

Sherlock huffs and climbs into the cab after him. "I'd make a similar affirmation, but you already know how likely I am to do _that_ again." He looks up at the cabbie and smiles brightly. "221B Baker Street, please," he says politely.

John groans. "Oh, God, yes," he says tiredly. "Just take me home."

**A/N: Yes, that is a true story. Is it that obvious? I now know for sure that I could never work in an abattoir. Thanks for reading, I know this story is far from perfect because of the length of time it took me to finish it (rule of thumb is, if it takes longer than two days for me to write a oneshot it's not going to be very good) so I'd appreciate your feedback!**

**-for you!**


	6. Sorry, What?

_**Sorry, What?**_

**Rating: **T

**Warnings: **Lashings of sexual references and one briefly mentioned but not described – to put it politely – good ol' _whankin'._

**A/N: **A little humour piece to pass the time and fill a prompt on the kinkmeme. Also, it's got to be the fifth or sixth shot I've written where John is either watching or mentions _QI_. Yes, I am a fan, and I'm fairly sure John would be, too. All in order? Right – onwards!

**-for you!**

Sherlock Holmes takes a deep breath.

It's not something he does very often, largely because he's usually focussed on more important things like thinking and if his lungs can't cope on their own they'll just have to lump it. Right now, though, he takes one anyway because he's read somewhere that it helps to calm you down when you're nervous. That's not something he has much experience with either, but the theory turns out to be bollocks; he's just as nervous after the breath as he was before it.

But enough about breathing, breathing's boring. Let's backtrack a bit, shall we? This morning dawned mild and a little damp, but Sherlock wasn't worried about the weather. He woke up at ten, and by ten fifteen Lestrade had called with a really rather interesting case involving a goldfish bowl, a toupee and a pair of tweezers, and even Sherlock wasn't quite sure how it got to where it did so quickly until about half an hour ago but it quite literally ended with a bang. His ears are still ringing faintly and he wasn't nearly as close to the building as John had been. Bless him, but the good doctor still has trouble keeping up sometimes.

As John had been blown off his feet and into Lestrade by the force of the explosion, Sherlock had been beset by three principal emotions: shock, concern and just a smidgeon of jealousy.

Which, let's face it, wasn't entirely unexpected. Sherlock has thought of many words to describe his relationship with John, but none of them quite cover it. He's not a complete stranger to physical attraction, but with John it's always been different: it's the doctor's _mind_ he was attracted to first, and now after eighteen months of living together he just loves _John_, as a whole, almost blindly and yet more clearly than anything he's ever felt before. He loves the way John appreciates him, cares for him, loves him. He loves every single tiny detail of their relationship, which inherently must mean that he loves the way John's crows-feet crinkle when he smiles and the way his hair looks in the morning, and he wouldn't change anything about it for the world. He knows he's maybe sometimes a little bit sexually attracted to the doctor. And he knows John's usually just a teensy bit attracted to him back. But their relationship is _so_ not about sex that somehow in his big scary brain he knows that it can _never_ be about sex. Which is fine, of course – it's perfect the way it is, so why change it?

For the first time today, something inside our favourite consulting detective disputed that claim. When John Watson was blown, bewildered, into the lap of an equally surprised Gregory Lestrade – it's probably worth noting here that nobody was seriously hurt in this case except the goldfish – Sherlock wanted to scoop him up into his arms and hold him until he was all right again, which of course is what he did straightaway. He also quickly discovered that he really wanted to take John and _kiss_ the hurt away with closed eyes and linked arms, but he knew he couldn't because sex would ruin their friendship.

He also knew that nothing could ruin their friendship.

If you've spotted the contradiction in those two sentences then you're one up on the consulting detective, who, it's been previously noted, can be spectacularly ignorant about some things. If you've spotted it already, it can't have taken you more than thirty seconds. The amazing Sherlock Holmes took a grand total of nine months, fourteen days and about three hours, which brings us back to around five minutes ago.

Between the revelation and the aforementioned deep breath, Sherlock's mind did some very quick thinking. It's rather good at that. He reasoned with himself suddenly that if nothing can ruin their relationship, and he's absolutely certain that nothing _can_, then theoretically they have nothing to lose. He's heard of good friendships being ruined because the two friends had sex before, but they can't possibly have been quite as close as Sherlock and John. The worst that can happen, again, theoretically, is that the sex doesn't work out, right? And that's where most of those friendships go wrong. Well, technically the two of them have already _had_ sex, although neither of them likes thinking about that week, and if _that_ didn't change their relationship one iota then this can't possibly.

The theoretical situation is a win-win. Sherlock's good at theory. Sometimes, though, people behave in ways that he didn't account for in his theoretical situations, and if there was a list of all the people who have ever surprised him, John would be the top twelve or thirteen people.

But, he decided eventually, the last decision of the furious five minutes, there could never be any harm in at least throwing these deductions in John's general directions and see if that's something he might possibly consider.

Hence the slight nerves contracting in his stomach like he's swallowed a grapefruit. Hence, after all of that, the deep breath.

John is in the sitting room with the television – predictably, an unbelievably old episode of QI – turned on so loud that just to be able to hear himself think, Sherlock had to lock himself in his bedroom. He comes out now, bursts through the door with his usual bravado and carefully positions himself on the coffee table so that his head is right between John and Steven Fry. John raises an eyebrow at him, then sees that he has his serious face on, sighs, and kills the sound on the telly.

"What is it, Sherlock?" he asks, not in irritation exactly, just a sort of resignation that Sherlock is never going to let him watch an entire episode of this program.

Sherlock catches himself taking another deep breath, tells himself off for it, mentally shrugs and continues. "John, I've been thinking. Do you think sex would ruin our friendship?" He doesn't pause for the good doctor to answer, but instead plunges headfirst into the deductive reasoning that led him to ask the question. "Because I know you're attracted to me and you know I'm attracted to you, but we don't do that sort of stuff anyway because we're already such good friends and you think that if we went into a romantic sort of relationship we'd fall into that stereotype and not have exactly this friendship anymore, and I always sort of trusted you because you know more about this sort of stuff than I do. But I think it might work, you know, because we already don't fit into stereotypes, so why would sex change that? I don't think it would change anything else about our relationship, John, and I think that we should give it a try. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, of course, and you can veto this suggestion at any point along the line if you want to, but I just think that maybe we should try it. It can't ruin our relationship, John, because nothing could do that, and technically I hate to bring it up but we've done that sort of thing before and it didn't change anything. I just… when you nearly got blown up this morning and I wasn't expecting it I just sort of realised, you know, that if we do we kind of don't have anything to lose and maybe it'll work, and if we don't we'll never know."

He glances up at John now, having delivered most of that speech to the room at large. The doctor's mouth has twitched into a half-smile, but it's impossible to tell what he's thinking. Sherlock loves that, loves that there are times when he actually cannot even begin to predict what he'll say. "I love you, John. You know that," he finishes finally. The doctor's expression does not change. Sherlock starts to get maybe a little bit _more_ nervous, if that's possible. "John?" he asks softly. "What do you think?"

John's weatherbeaten, much-loved face splits into Sherlock's favourite smile. "Brilliant, Sherlock," he exclaims proudly. "Absolutely brilliant, like always. I'm positive you're right."

Sherlock frowns. Well, yeah, great and all that, but really when you fit that response back to the original query it doesn't quite match up; he doesn't know much about romantic relationships, but he knows that a proposal to start one, however well-reasoned, merits a little more thought than a 'brilliant, Holmes!'. "What, that's it? You're positive I'm right – so you want to give it a go, then?" he tries to clarify. John frowns too, now looking thoroughly confused.

"Look, Sherlock, I'm sorry, but I really can't hear you. My ears are still ringing from the explosion this morning, all I can hear is a sort of mumbling. You'll have to talk louder."

Sherlock's heart sinks. So John didn't hear _any_ of his little speech? That had taken him a while to bumble out so ineloquently. He sighs, readies himself for another go only louder, then gives up. Suddenly he doesn't feel like confessing again. He considers it for another few seconds; it can wait, if he ever feels like bringing it up again. And maybe John was right the first time. Maybe it's a bad idea to even bring it up. "Never mind," he waves away, standing up. "It's not important."

John apologises again, but Sherlock's already gone, so he shrugs and turns the sound back on the television. The consulting detective is blasted with another wave of General Ignorance as he shuts his bedroom door again. He sits on his bed with his head on his fists, half-hard from anticipation and disappointed, and re-weighs the pros and cons.

He knows there's something about sex that is taboo to even mention, knows that even bringing it up can ruin a friendship. What if John had said no? It would always be sort of hanging between them, that Sherlock had wanted sex at one point and John hadn't, and even if both of them pretended to ignore it it would always _be _there and somehow the relationship wouldn't be as good anymore.

There's nothing wrong with it the way it is; in fact, it's _perfect_ right now. He's never – with today being the only exception – been attracted enough to the doctor to do anything about it, and he knows that's the way John feels too. So it doesn't matter. Sherlock knows he'll never mention it again, and somehow feels that he won't regret it. Knows that tomorrow he'll be _insanely_ glad he didn't, because he's new to sex with someone he actually _cares_ about and tomorrow the brief longing to kiss John will have gone away.

He lies down and with the sound of Steven Fry still in his ears – a 'John' sound if ever there was one – he wanks to thoughts of the doctor for the first and last time. And it doesn't matter, somehow, that he goes back into the sitting room after calming down and lies down with John on the couch, the doctor massaging his head absently. It doesn't feel wrong, or dirty, even if John knows what he's been doing he doesn't have to say anything.

That's the way their relationship works; even sex couldn't ever come between them.

**A/N: So that turned out sadder than it was meant to. But hey. Hope you enjoyed it anyway. Oh – the prompt on the kinkmeme was _Sherlock confesses his undying love to John, who doesn't quite catch it. Maybe the TV is too loud, or he's on the phone, or something. _It fitted into my headcanon for this piece better than anything else. Drop me a line on your way out!**

**-for you!**


End file.
